TABLETOP MINIATURES HOBBY BLOG ABOUT SCIFI WARFARE WAGED FROM THE SAFETY AND COMFORT OF YOUR CHAIR!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Datacards

During some of the dozen or so demos that I gave to prospective players, one frequent comment made even by long time wargamers was that the datacard was quite busy and contained a daunting amount of info for people unaccustomed to the rules. One primarily board/card gamer even wanted to pass on the demo when he saw the cards! While there isn't any wasted info displayed on the current Blitz datacards, I do agree that they contain possibly too much of a good thing. Since my goal is to simplify and quicken the Blitz experience, I decided to start with the datacard.

One of the first changes that a veteran Blitz! player will notice is that some of the older RPG terms have returned to the example blank datacard that I posted above. It seemed like it was easier and more intuitive for most gamers to remember that moving at top speed was almost always +1 to defense and -1 to attack rather than deciphering the array of numbers based on movement mode and speed. I considered using slightly more intuitive terms like offense and defense instead of the Heavy Gear RPG inspired maneuver and firecontrol ratings but ultimately decided on using the legacy terms instead. After changing that, I realized that there frankly is no need for an independent fire control stat since it is ALWAYS added to the accuracy of the weapon used and can simply be incorporated there instead. For instance, a Jaguar that normally has a +1 in blitz to attack with its MAC (acc 0) would instead just have the accuracy of the weapon bumped up by the +1 instead. I'd appreciate it if readers of this blog would let me know if they prefer the legacy terms (fire control, maneuver) or more generic but intuitive ones (offense, defense) as well as if they prefer having the firecontrol/offensive gear stat rolled into each weapon or listed separately. On a similar note, I've never used the physical damage "weapon" on any gear that had another close combat weapon so I've just taken that weapon off of the datacard examples below and recommend that any readers using this do the same to reduce clutter.

The second big change is that the slew of comms, sensors, autocomms, and detect have been rolled up into a single Electronics stat instead. While maneuver and firecontrol were easy to explain to and understand by new players, the group of stats mentioned above were simply not. While they do add a significant level of variety to differentiate the stats of various recon gears, I don't find the variety they give justify the added RPG level of complexity for people looking for a quick game. I plan to make my Heavy Gear Flash modified datacards for most units eventually but I will post my conversion formula below for those wishing to try it out on their own before then.

Basically, it's an average of the difference between the model in question's stats and the humble jaeger/hunter gears that I use as a baseline. Comms and Sensors are already in the standard format so there is no problem there but detect and autocomm are not. For the last two stats, subtract 2 from detect and 3 from autocomm (the Jaeger/Hunter stats) then add them up and divide the total by two. Add up comm, sensors, and detect/autocomm amalgam and divide by 3 rounding off to get the new electronics stat. From my calculations, most elite gears like Jaguars and Mambas will end up with a +1 while dedicated recon units get a +2 with a small few getting a +3 if they have a very high stat like the Weasel or Windtalker recon car; only the ELINT Silverscale to my knowledge gets a +4 due to it's game-changing high detect score which ends up getting reflected dutifuly in the Flash! variant. We now have a single electronics stat that is true to the combination of the original four stats. The rules involving the replaced stats will be getting a revision as well so don't worry that the Electronics stat doesn't work with the Blitz rules as written.

Finally, movement and weapon range are just a single number listed on the datacard instead of the multiple numbers with slashes. The current blitz units almost always have a top speed that is within 1" of double their combat speed so I felt that the extra slash and number on the stat block just complicated things in a skirmish scale wargame setting. I've replaced it with just a single spot that will list the Blitz combat speed by itself as the top speed will always be double that number. As for weapon ranges, I've changed the weapon bands to just a single number consisting of the old optimal range (which I've renamed short range) instead. See the weapon ranges chapter for the details and reasons behind it.

At a future date, I'll enlist the help of a more experienced fellow DP9 fan to design a better looking datacard than my limited artistic abilities allow but the one above does illustrate my ideas well enough. Here's a comparison of the two side by side. Let me know either here through the comments or over on DP9forum.com what you think. I'm still debating the utility of having the size on the datacard but I'm leaving it in for now till I have my houserules finalized.

LOL! Don't I know it! It'll take me awhile to get everything finished, but once it's all hammered out we'll see how it goes. I'm already thinking of ways to make things even more lethal so the game plays faster for folks. Crazy, I know, but there it is.

Also, just a thought, but wouldn't it be possible to take some of the wireframe Gears and throw them into that DP9 logo for variety?

That's a great idea but possibly beyond my technical abilities to add a wireframe gear as I'd have to make the gear much more transparent to fit in with the white logo theme. The logo I made is from the free DP9 media pack specifically for fan sites and the "FLASH!" is actually a cut/paste screenshot of a font I downloaded (lol, no photoshop skills here!). I'm not a fan of the wireframes in the media pack but there are some great ones in the art book pdf that I bought through drivethrurpg as well as in the blueprints pack DP9 came out with... unfortunately, I don't know the legalities of using snippets of that in my fansite logo frankly. I'd have to ask DP9 about that before doing it.

I do like the analogy of adding the wireframe gear with its guts exposed to my attempt of lightening the rules load of the current Blitz rules for players interested in a leaner and quicker game.

Thanks both for the comments and the offer! If this set of house rules gains some traction for smaller and leaner HG games, having the option to output in GG (which I meant to link above as well but forgot yesterday!) would be a great help. I'm still working out how the rules interact but I'll definitely take you up on the offer in about 2 weeks or so. My Flash! houserules are basically divided up into two general categories. The first is the pruning and occasional tweaking of the core mechanics in the FM and the second is a change in the squad organization as well as one stat of the Fire Support type gears. That might be a bit more work than is clear initially from my blog intro and I know you're busy with the FIF update currently.

Thanks. While the current glut of info on the datacards all has it's usefulness, I just found it too be too much. After simplifying a few things, I found that roughly half the spots on the card could be removed as redundant or unnecessary.